El Famoso hits Beijing!

Amidst the bewildering world affairs that have happened, many of us would wonder if anything else even matters. Our answer is: “Hell ya, it does!!”. When artists wanna draw, they will draw!

Stickerbomb fans would know that some time last month, we had Ian Jepson (@ian_jepson) from South Africa visit Hangzhou for a collaboration with Levi’s China. This time, Stickerbomb invited artist-duo El Famoso from the UK for another weekend of Live Draw event in China’s capital, Beijing. Unfortunately for the brothers, they couldn’t escape the cold of South London when they had to brave Beijing’s chilly autumn to draw for 4.5 hours – on both days! Nonetheless they did make their audience (and the client) happy. Lucky passersby who had stopped to watch the duo work their magic on the canvas managed to snag some sick patches designed for the brand.

At the event, El Famoso (a collective name for the Fairhead brothers) displayed a mash-up of their complimenting styles and everything that inspires them – from monsters, gods, witch craft, animals, ‘mr kipling’, toys, party food (nibbles), Johnny Cash, Russian Criminal tattoos, tribes, comics, heroes, killer robots, bad films, posters, fantasy, folk and some other bits and bobs. Yet on the other hand, they do work separately on their individual projects. So, does the brotherly ‘chemistry’ give them that edge to work well with each other? Our Stickerbomb representative managed to grab a chat with them when they were not drawing, gorging down baskets of dumplings or at the Irish bar. Check out what El Famoso has to say!

Hey Rich and Chris! Could you introduce yourselves real quick to our Stickerbomb fans?
Hi. We’re Rich and Chris Fairhead, brothers based in South London who illustrate together under the collective name El Famoso (because it sounds more exotic than ‘The Fairheads’).

End of Day 1 of live drawing for Levi’s Beijing

Is this your first time in China? How are you guys enjoying Beijing?

Yep, this is our 1st time in China. Well, I went to Hong Kong earlier this year. (let’s not go there)

We’re definitely enjoying the food in Beijing. The Duck and Dumplings are top-notch. We’ve been exploring the Beijing Hutongs (old alleys) and sampling the Whisky too. But Chris wants to check out some Cat Cafes.

You guys been collaborating with each other for a long time! What’s it like working with each other? eg. what is the fights dynamics like, do you have a “system” you guys adopt?

We’ve been working together for a fair few years now. We have a similar style, and both share the same sense of humour so its pretty straight forward getting ideas down. We can be honest with each other too, if something looks shit, we can tell one another. El Famoso is a chance to concentrate on projects, prints and murals that we want to ‘work work’ rather than ‘have’ to work on. On larger murals and live draws (such as this Levi’s project) , we tend to draw bold black & white obscure scenes, it works well for both our styles.

Rich and Chris working on patches for Levi’s China. Photo taken by Stickerbomb.

So tell us about this collaboration with Levi’s China to create the patches?

Levi’s picked our drawings as it was a style that fitted the brief for the patches so it was really easy collaborating with them! We’ve been creating images inspired by old sailor tattoos and Victorian stock illustrations for a few years now – they liked that, as did we.

Live Draw at the Leadenhall Building, London. Photo by Neil Walker Photography, taken from El Famoso.

What do you like about working on larger scale projects such as live painting/drawing?

We love working on large scale drawings (depending on how cold it is). It gets a bit stale sitting at a desk in front of a computer day in day out.

Rich Fairhead for Projection Artworks 2015. Photo from Rich Fairhead.

If you guys could work with another duo, who would they be?

Another duo to work with…………tricky…… Probably McNulty and Bunk from ‘The Wire’.

Stickerbomb can’t wait to get on further projects with them. In the meantime, track other cool works from the duo on their website or their Instagram (@elfamosoillustration/@chris_elfamoso/@richfairhead). Adios!

Stickerbomb

STICKERBOMB believes in providing artists, illustrators and muralists with a platform for showcasing their work to a global audience.
A brainchild of Studio Rarekind, a creative workshop with an established presence in London, Bangkok and Singapore, Stickerbomb curates artwork in its popular sticker book collectable series, raved about by a worldwide following.
Today, Stickerbomb stays true to a vision of building a community of emerging artists, by giving fans a daily dosage of contemporary art and street culture.